From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu Oct 11 2001 - 01:37:03 MDT
On Wed, Oct 10, 2001 at 04:21:24PM -0700, jeff davis wrote:
>
> Better phrasing of the same question: What purpose
> does the above factoid serve for the "side" which
> controls this particular media outlet, and authorized
> the factoid's publication?
It is based on a press release it seems from Iomart. Iomart isn't doing
very well otherwise, it seems, so I can se one obvious self-serving use
of this: they sell intranet monitoring software (so that you boss can
find out if you have the "wrong" files on your office computer). If porn
might contain terrorist messages, executives might want to prevent
employees from downloading it - not because the employees might be
terrorists, but simply because the company might get implicated in some
terrorism hunt. Fuel that fear, and you get customers. If anything, you
look good fighting terrorism and convincing people that there is a lot
of evil out on the net (and porn is easier to attack than ebay
pictures).
I don't know if there is any external supporting evidence that they are
helping the CIA more than any other ISP. Also, it could simply be a
bible-code type of finding messages in noise; the article did not
mention anything about the coding method.
None of this shows that the article is wrong or just a propaganda piece.
But I found it somewhat suspicious when I read it.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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